In this collected volume fourteen experts in the fields of Classics and Ancient History study the textual strategies used by Herodotus and Livy when recounting the disastrous battles at Thermopylae and Cannae. Literary, linguistic and historical approaches are used (often in combination) in order to enhance and enrich the interpretation of the accounts, which for obvious reasons confronted the authors with a special challenge. Chapters drawing a comparison with other battle narratives and with other genres help to establish genre-specific elements in ancient historiography, and draw attention to the particular techniques employed by Herodotus and Livy in their war narratives.

This book reveals how violent pasts were constructed by ancient Mediterranean societies, the ideologies they served, and the socio-political processes and institutions they facilitated. Combining case studies from Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, Israel/Judah, and Rome, it moves beyond essentialist dichotomies such as “victors” and “vanquished” to offer a new paradigm for studying representations of past violence across diverse media, from funerary texts to literary works, chronicles, monumental reliefs, and other material artefacts such as ruins. It thus paves the way for a new comparative approach to the study of collective violence in the ancient world.

Uses new methodologies, evidence, and topics to better understand ancient warfare and its place in culture and history New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare brings together essays from specialists in ancient history who employ contemporary tools and approaches to reveal new evidence and increase knowledge of ancient militaries and warfare. In-depth yet highly readable, this volume covers the most recent trends for understanding warfare, militaries, soldiers, non-combatants, and their roles in ancient cultures. Chronologically-organized chapters explore new methodologies, evidence, and topics while offering fresh and original perspectives on recent documentary and archaeological discoveries. Covering the time period from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire, the text asks questions of both new and re-examined old evidence and discusses the everyday military life of soldiers and veterans. Chapters address unique topics such as neurophysiological explanations for why some soldiers panic and others do not in the same battle, Greek society’s handling of combat trauma in returning veterans, the moral aspects and human elements of ancient sieges, medical care in the late Roman Empire, and the personal experience of military servicemembers and their families. Each chapter is self-contained to allow readers to explore topics in any order they prefer. This book: Features case studies that examine psychological components of military service such as morale, panic, recovery, and trauma Offers discussions of the economics of paying for warfare in the Greek and Roman worlds and why Roman soldiers mutinied Covers examining human remains of ancient conflict, including interesting photos Discusses the role of women in families and as victims and addresses issues related to women and war Places discussions in the broader context of new wave military history and includes complete bibliographies and further reading suggestions Providing new material and topical focus, New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare is an ideal text for Greek History or Roman History courses, particularly those focusing on ancient warfare, as well as scholars and general readers with interest in the ancient militaries.

The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the oldest and most well-attested Christian works. Its popularity arguably exceeded that of the canonical Gospels. Many early Christian thinkers regarded the Shepherd as authoritative and cited it in their own writings, even though its status as Scripture was controversial. The far-reaching influence of the Shepherd during the first few centuries is attested in part by the many languages in which it was copied: Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Middle Persian, and Georgian. The early dating and wide dissemination of the Shepherd of Hermas offers us access to a period when canonical boundaries were elastic. This volume treats religious experience in the Shepherd, a topic that has received little scholarly attention. It complements a growing body of literature that explores the text from social-historical perspectives. Leading scholars approach it from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including critical literary theory, anthropology, cognitive science, affect theory, gender studies, intersectionality, and text reception. In doing so, they pose fresh questions to one of the most widely read texts in the early church, offering new insights to scholars and students alike.

War and Literary Studies poses two main questions: First, how has war shaped the field of literary studies? And second, when scholars today study the literature of war what are the key concepts in play? Seeking to complement the extant scholarship, this volume adopts a wider and more systematic approach as it directs our attention to the relation between warfare and literary studies as a field of knowledge. What are the key characteristics of the language of war? Of gender in war? Which questions are central to the way we engage with war and trauma or war and sensation? In which ways were prominent 20th century theories such as critical theory, French postwar theory, postcolonial theory shaped by war? How might emergent concepts such as 'revolution,' 'the anthropocene' or 'capitalism' inflect the study of war and literature?

This handbook brings together 42 contributions by leading narratologists devoted to the study of narrative devices in European literatures from antiquity to the present. Each entry examines the use of a specific narrative device in one or two national literatures across the ages, whether in successive or distant periods of time. Through the analysis of representative texts in a range of European languages, the authors compellingly trace the continuities and evolution of storytelling devices, as well as their culture-specific manifestations. In response to Monika Fludernik’s 2003 call for a "diachronization of narratology," this new handbook complements existing synchronic approaches that tend to be ahistorical in their outlook, and departs from postclassical narratologies that often prioritize thematic and ideological concerns. A new direction in narrative theory, diachronic narratology explores previously overlooked questions, from the evolution of free indirect speech from the Middle Ages to the present, to how changes in narrative sequence encoded the shift from a sacred to a secular worldview in early modern Romance literatures. An invaluable new resource for literary theorists, historians, comparatists, discourse analysts, and linguists.

Brill’s Companion to Greek Land Warfare Beyond the Phalanx brings together emerging and established scholars to build on the new consensus of multiform Greek warfare, on and off the battlefield, beyond the usual chronological, geographical, and operational boundaries.

Politeness serves to manage social relations or is wielded as an instrument of power. Through good manners, people demonstrate their educational background and social rank. This is the first book to bring together the most recent scholarship on politeness and impoliteness in Ancient Greek and Latin, signalling both its universal and its culture-specific traits. Leading scholars analyse texts by canonical classical authors (including Plato, Cicero, Euripides, and Plautus), as well as non-literary sources, to provide glimpses into the courtesy and rudeness of Greek and Latin speakers. A wide range of interdisciplinary approaches is adopted, namely pragmatics, conversation analysis, and computational linguistics. With its extensive introduction, the volume introduces readers to one of the most dynamic fields of Linguistics, while demonstrating that it can serve as an innovative tool in philological readings of classical texts.

A major scholarly collaboration exploring vivid visual rhetoric in the New Testament From Jesus’s miraculous walk on water to the graphic horrors of hell, New Testament authors make vivid and unforgettable images appear before their audience’s eyes. In the past decade, scholarship on early Christian use of ancient rhetorical techniques has flourished. One focus of rhetorical criticism of the New Testament has been the function of ekphrasis, or vivid visual description. In this landmark collection, leading New Testament scholars come together to probe the purpose and import of ekphrasis in early Christian literature. The research in this collection explores the relationship between vivid rhetoric and genre, taking into account technical features, authorial intent, and audience response. Specific topics include: • The New Testament’s rhetoric compared against Greco-Roman rhetorical handbooks • Juxtaposition between vivid and non-vivid rhetoric • The use of energeia in John’s Gospel to draw upon the reader’s multiple senses • Aesthetics and the grotesque in Revelation • The use of travelogue to create a virtual journey for the audience • Vivid rhetoric in early martyr literature Vivid Rhetoric and Visual Persuasion is a must-read for scholars of early Christianity and rhetorical criticism. Readers will find this collection indispensable in understanding a complex feature of the New Testament in its historical context. Contributors Contributors Bart B. Bruehler, Diane Fruchtman, Meghan Henning, Martina Kepper, Susanne Luther, Harry O. Maier, Gudrun Nassauer, Nils Neumann, Vernon K. Robbins, Gary S. Selby, Aldo Tagliabue, Sunny Kuan-Hui Wang, Annette Weissenrieder, Robyn J. Whitaker

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Immersion, Identification, and the Iliad explains why people care about this foundational epic poem and its characters. It represents the first book-length application to the Iliad of research in communications, literary studies, media studies, and psychology on how readers of a story or viewers of a play, movie, or television show find themselves immersed in the tale and identify with the characters. Immersed recipients get wrapped up in a narrative and the world it depicts and lose track to some degree of their real-world surroundings. Identification occurs when recipients interpret the storyworld from a character's perspective, feel emotions congruent with those of the character, and root for the character to succeed. This volume situates modern research on these experiences in relation to ancient criticism on how audiences react to narratives. It then offers close readings of select episodes and detailed analyses of recurring features to show how the Iliad immerses both ancient and modern recipients and encourages them to identify with its characters. Accessible to students and researchers, to those inside and outside of classical studies, this interdisciplinary project aligns research on the Iliad with contemporary approaches to storyworlds in a range of media. It thereby opens new frontiers in the study of ancient Greek literature and helps investigators of audience engagement from antiquity to the present contextualize and historicize their own work.